India

WORKSHOP



1. According to Gangury-Scrase & Scrase (1999) had globalization in India provided significant improvement of living for lower-income workers by 1999? Justify.

Globalization in India has had a contradictory effect for lower income workers, because in one hand they certainly have improved their living but in the other hand the classes differences remain, and although their income levels have raised their purchasing power still being low. Thus is good in the way that now they are able to get information and knowledge through the electronic media which has had a great reception, women have more participation in working areas, they have more access to credits, they have developed desires to purchase consumer goods and they are more open to other cultures. But not only their incomes are low, but the credits they get have high interests and elevated monthly repayments, so they get trapped in the consumerism. Also this consumerism makes them want to buy more assets and they can not because they have a lot of debts. Although they like the electronic media they are concerned about the content of foreign behavior related to the individualism of human being. This is very important in a country like India that has a strong culture and strong feelings and thoughts about how should a man and a woman live a decent life. Even though the government is trying to do the best to bring to India more social benefits, specially to the middle class, globalization has not been an even process and only high classes are being benefited and lower income workers are living an ambiguous situation.



2. How is the situation for workers today in India?

India has a rural working force larger than the urban; this has created the need to release laws to control the growing migration of workers that move to cities on the look for better opportunities. Due to this surplus of labour supply, employers have started to lower salaries and working conditions as well, whilst having such a large mass of workers to choose from, employers apparently have more power and therefore end up exploiting the employees. Low wages, children and women working receiving even less for salary, lack of concern for working and living conditions, 18 hours shifts, no provisions for leave or absence, are just a few of the elements depicting the poor working conditions that end up from this migration.
Being aware of this blur horizon, the government is pushing laws that formerly tried to protect employers, but currently leaned more towards protecting the employees in a hunt for improving labour market conditions in the country and therefore being able to compete more ethically and being watched with good eyes from the international community.

3. How cultural globalization has affected India?

India, like many countries that have engaged in free market economies, has gone through a strong and quick borders opening process that has touched many aspects of the country; economy, demography, education, many of them, but with special importance “culture” is the one feature that gets being strongly attached to every individual, experiences a process of knowing and assimilating whatever comes new, and here is where communities of peoples differentiate from one another.
In the particular case of India, by the year 1.991 it began receiving tremendous amounts of information from abroad through media, but somehow, and according to Steve Derné (2.005) this connection with the globalized world has not changed quite as much the culture itself. He proposes that globalization has touched the Indian culture, but mostly elites are the ones that have the most access to the international world, therefore, cultural values and norms have not changed deeply in India, due to globalization.
The author emphasizes that, despite India being such an important player in the international field today, its culture remain quite conservative in many aspects, for example arranged marriages, where parents pick the couple for their son/daughter restraining them from freely choosing what they like best.
So one could say that globalization has not affected the Indian culture as much as it should due to the participation of that country in global fields, they remain strongly attached to their past but foreseeing a bright future for all, putting India as a key player of the planet, as it has been planned ever since they got independence from Britain.


4. Describe the indian's green revolution

The world’s worst recorded food disaster happened in 1943 in British-ruled India, it was known as the Bengal Famine, it was estimated that four million people died of hunger that year in eastern India, this situation occurs because two things: a shortfall in food production in the area and the hysteria related to World War II which made food supply a low priority for the British rulers.

"India’s Green Revolution" is applied to the period from 1967 to 1978. After the period of hunger lived by the citizens of India between 1947 and 1967, efforts at achieving food self-sufficiency were not entirely successful. But it was in 1967 due to the population was growing at a much faster rate than food production, that the people in India realized that was necessary to called for drastic action, that action came in the form of the Green Revolution - term applied to successful agricultural experiments in many Third World countries-.

The success of the Green Revolution in India was based in three basic elements:

a. Continued expansion of farming areas: The areas under cultivation were increased.

b. Double-cropping existing farmland: The decision was to increase of one crop season per year to have two crop seasons per year, for that they need to made an artificial Monsoon (Irrigation techniques were adopted, were built dams)

c. Using seeds with improved genetics: The Indian Council for Agricultural research developed new strains of high yield value seeds.

India’s Green revolution it’s not the only one that had been developed in the world, but it’s the most important once until today.

5. Did the British Raj enriched or impoverish India?

With no doubts, the British Raj, or kingdom impoverished India during its time of colonization. In 1870, when India was by British government, India had a 12.2% share of world income, then in 1913 it decrease into 7.6% and then in the Post Independence period, near to its newly freedom, their economy had a 3.8 % share of world income.
The indicators show how the British administration damaged India’s economy in a very hard way, when in the previous colonization days, India reached a share of 24.4% of world income, an amazing percentage, isn’t it?
India was known as one of the greatest economy in the world, with China, this was during 1500 ad 1700 BC.
For many Indians, the British Raj exploited their resources for their advantage, flooded India with imports from UK when India wasn’t even prepare for international commerce. They speak about a government that humiliated them as a culture, with their customs, massacre of Jallianwallia bagh, and executed people who revolted.
Now India is starting to grow again and is focused in the service sector as their strongest one, is an emergent economy for now days and hopefully will go further than those first days when British wasn’t managing their fields, people and culture

References

• Majumder, R. Mukherjee, D. 2009. State Intervention and Labour Market in India: Issues and Options. Munich Personal RePEc Archive, online publication January 17. MPRA Paper No. 12409

• www.indiaonestop.com and www.wikipedia.org

• Derné, S. 2005. The (limited) effect of cultural globalization in India: implications for culture theory. Poetics, online publication February 9. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2005.01.002.

• Was the British Raj good for India? (2005) The examined life. http://www.ravikiran.com/blog/classic/200506/was-the-british-raj-good-for-india/. Retrieved on May, 2009
  

Image

• The Adobe of god at Dusk. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/designldg/2499117253/
• In the times of the british raj. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/godoirum-bassanensis/2677154072/